


there shalt thou find the mariners asleep

by Dhillarearen



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 15:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11039049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dhillarearen/pseuds/Dhillarearen
Summary: The bridgeboy is asleep on guard duty, and during a highstorm, no less. Adolin takes the time to study him.(Inset for WOR Chapters 32-33)





	there shalt thou find the mariners asleep

_If by your art, my dearest father, you have_

_ Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. _

_ The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, _

_ But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, _

_ Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered _

_ With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel, _

_ Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, _

_ Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock _

_ Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd. _

_ Had I been any god of power, I would _

_ Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere _

_ It should the good ship so have swallow'd and _

_ The fraughting souls within her. _

 

— _The Tempest,_ Act I Scene 2

 

* * *

 

The bridgeboy was sleeping.

It annoyed Adolin more than he cared to admit while under Renarin’s placid gaze: his brother had a way of asking just the right questions to make Renarin’s most jealously-held grievances seem like so much rockdust. But storms, if his father was trusting a former bridgeman with the protection of the royal family, surely he had the right to expect the man to do a little protecting instead of nodding off on the job.

_Don’t pout, Adolin, it ill becomes you,_ Navani’s voice said in his head. Adolin sighed and rubbed at a spot on his forehead. The bridgeboy _had_ been useful in allaying Elhokar’s fears after the railing incident, and—as much as he chafed at having nursemaids— Adolin had to admit that Kaladin had done more than a decent job of corralling a mess of unruly bridgemen into line and stopping up a number of the security gaps around Elhokar, his father, and his aunt.If only the man weren’t so storming insolent!

It was the storm that was making him so irritable.Being trapped inside, huddling while the elements wreaked havoc and kicked up a shrieking, Heralds-curst noise at it had always made him itch.The addition of his father’s visions had not helped, and now that he was being shepherded in with the high-strung Elhokar… Adolin leaned back against the gilded relief on the chamber wall (a scene of triumph from the histories, to match the others that lined the room, but Adolin couldn’t be bothered to remember which one) and forced himself to breathe deep.Renarin, seated at the wide table dominating the room, was nodding along politely to whatever Elhokar was saying. Not wanting to get involved in the dullness of _that_ conversation, Adolin let his eyes stray back over to where Kaladin dozed.

Even in sleep, he clutched his spear, curling around it with a single-minded intensity that reminded Adolin of mother axehounds with their young. Whatever dreams he was having weren’t restful. His face was creased in a grimace, and behind his eyelids his pupils moved, jittering under tightly drawn brows. 

“Serves you right for sleeping during a highstorm,” Adolin said. Kaladin didn’t respond.

Against his better judgement, Adolin found himself feeling sorry for the man.He was always scowling when he was awake: if his dreams couldn’t give him a measure of comfort, what could? The cord that had been keeping Kaladin’s hair back had come loose, and despite the painful twist of his mouth, the hanging strands softened what Adolin had come to think of as an unforgiving face. Perhaps the slave brand should have ruined the effect? Adolin was a soldier, and no stranger to scarring, on himself or on others. He could see how Kaladin might even be handsome, if he ever bothered to unclench himself enough to try.

Outside, the wind screamed upward to a higher pitch. Everyone inside the room flinched, except the bridgeboy, who simply nuzzled further into the wooden slats of the chair he’d appropriated.How tired _was_ he, that he could sleep through this? Adolin thought back and realized, with a prick of guilt for his earlier disparagement, that aside from when Kaladin had been out patrolling he’d been a near-constant presence at his or his father’s backs since his instatement. Either flitting around in that silent, light-footed way of his or melting into the shadows until he saw fit to come forth with another presumptuous comment.

Looking closer, Adolin could see the dark bruising under Kaladin’s eyes, the haggard sharpness to his cheeks. Much of that must have been a result of slave rations and bridge duty: the man was hardly suffering _more_ now that he’d been made— _shards!_ —a captain, especially since Adolin knew his father’s dedication to feeding and outfitting his soldiers. Still, now that he’d noticed it, uneasiness sat sour in Adolin’s belly and made his cheeks flush with something that felt dangerously close to shame.

He’d order Kaladin to go to bed, after the storm let up. Or ask his father to, more likely: the bridgeboy had a particular resistance to Adolin’s authority.He could hardly allow the man in charge of protecting his family to get sloppy due to exhaustion.

“Adolin, come settle a dispute for us,” Elhokar called, imperious as always. Fighting back a groan, Adolin pushed himself off the wall and made for the table. He allowed himself one last look back, lingering on the tense lines of Kaladin’s arms and back as he folded over himself in the narrow chair. _That can’t be comfortable,_ Adolin thought, and then his brother drew his attention with a touch upon the arm, and Adolin was distracted by Elhokar’s spirited condemnation of whatever it was he and Renarin had been talking about.

* * *

 

An uproar—running— _the Assassin in White—_ was he here to kill his father or the king or them both or them all—the bridgeboy a blur with his spear, landing blows when _Adolin was helpless_ —

 

* * *

 

And then the bridgeboy returned, improbably, _impossibly,_ looking like death itself but whole (two good arms, two, _how)_ from a fall that should’ve killed him. Talking to his father and to _Elhokar_ without so much as a salute or a “yes, sir.”

The words to upbraid him were thick on Adolin’s tongue, but somehow they wouldn’t come.Instead he watched his father and the bridgeboy talk, a conversation wine-drenched in deeper meanings Adolin couldn’t understand. Renarin could, perhaps, but his brother was staring empty-eyed at the floor between his feet, and Adolin would bet that he hadn’t even heard Kaladin coming in.

Was the bridgeboy—was Kaladin— _still working_ after all that? Adolin could barely lift a fingertip, he was so weary, and he hadn’t been the one to tumble off a cliff. And he’d had his wounds looked at, besides. Didn’t Kaladin…wasn’t he _hurt?_

(Hadn’t Adolin seen him hurt?)

He didn’t understand this man, who he was or how he’d learned what he had or why he cared so much about some things and turned his back on others like they were refuse. He needed—storms. Adolin was going to have to keep watching him, wasn’t he. 

Kaladin reached for a lamp. “Hold here. I need to do something.”

_Arrogant storming…!_

 

* * *

 

(Much, much later, Adolin would think to wonder that the prospect of keeping a close eye on Kaladin hadn’t seemed enough of the chore it should have been. Instead of resentment, or even the suspicion that had come later, Adolin had felt…a stirring of his blood, a keening of his senses. Something, he would say to Kaladin, when the night hid his face and the sheets were cool around them, almost like the Thrill but not...destructive. 

_I’m not a battle,_ Kaladin would say, tightening his arms around Adolin’s waist.

_You’ve been nothing_ but _a battle since the day I met you,_ Adolin would reply, laughing, and there would be no sleep for either of them for quite some time.)

 

* * *

_Nay, good my lord, be not angry._

_ No, I warrant you; I will not adventure _

_ my discretion so weakly. Will you laugh _

_ me asleep, for I am very heavy? _

 

— _The Tempest_ , Act II Scene 1

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Adolin likes the ones that give him a fight yeeeaaaahhhhhh boi (I’m going to write that three-way shakadolin shardblade sparring match someday I swear)  
> 


End file.
